2/11/15

This small photo is from Donald G. Schnabel's family album. Most of the photos are from Ohio, mainly Lima. I have no information about the subjects of this shot. Mother and daughter? Sisters? We'll never know.

The photographers were the Van De Grift Brothers and their studio was called the Cottage Gallery. I have not found any information about the brothers other than one was named Hume and they were from Lima, Ohio. That's it. Dead end. Perhaps someone else will have some information.

Click on image to see it larger.UPDATE:Thank you Mike!

In 1897 W.K. Van de Grift was a secretary of a photographers association with address in Lima. From 1903 or so he was 45 miles south in Piqua, OH where he sold his studio in 1912 due to ill health. There was also another photographer in Ft. Wayne in the 1910-20s who might be the brother.

UPDATE: Thank you Intense Guy!

The entire Van De Grift family were photographers.
Father Cyrus W/H Van De Grift (b. 1834) apparently owned the "Cottage Gallery" and may have moved it to Chillicothe, Missouri in 1891.

Sons, Harry (b. 1864), William K (b. 1869-70), and Robert (b. 1877) were all photographers in Ohio.

6 comments:

In 1897 W.K. Van de Grift was a secretary of a photographers association with address in Lima. From 1903 or so he was 45 miles south in Piqua, OH where he sold his studio in 1912 due to ill health. There was also another photographer in Ft. Wayne in the 1910-20s who might be the brother.

Thanks! I had found a few of these pages somewhere along the line. I'm guessing Betty did it because she was very involved with genealogy. I have wondered what happened to all of her files. A lot were on old floppy disks so I knew there was no sense in buying them.

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